Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor Matthew Anderson, on Friday, August 28, withdrew his Record of Decision approving the Gold Butterfly Project. The project area stretches over 10 miles in the Sapphire Mountains from Stevensville to Corvallis covering an area of 55,147 acres. The vegetative management component of the project included commercial logging on 5,461 acres, prescribed burning activities on 4,854 acres and non-commercial logging of smaller trees on 5,040 acres. It was approved on November 19, 2019, but on July 10, 2020, two conservation organizations, Friends of the Bitterroot and Alliance for the Wild Rockies, filed suit to stop the project, alleging several violations of the law, including that the project did not follow the Forest Plan.
“I have decided it is in the best interest of the public to withdraw the decision and direct my staff to conduct additional review and analysis,” wrote Anderson. “Upon further review of the project analysis, we recognized some deficiencies regarding Forest Plan compliance.” He said any new decision will proceed through the required NEPA and public involvement procedures.
Anderson said that the objectives of the project included improving forest resilience to natural disturbances, such as fire, insects, and diseases, reducing chronic sediment sources in Willow Creek watershed to improve water quality and bull trout habitat, restoring or improving key habitats including meadows, aspen, and whitebark pine, and managing timber to provide forest products, jobs, and income to local communities. The decision also included vegetation management activities, including commercial timber harvests, non-commercial thinning, and prescribed burning on approximately 7,376 acres to improve forest health. The selected alternative was modified to retain old growth status in all treatment units.
Anderson emphasized, “The Forest staff on the Bitterroot will be reviewing the procedural steps and analysis to date, and we will determine the best path to move the project forward. The Bitterroot National Forest is still committed to completing the important work in this project area.”
Stevensville District Ranger Steve Brown said that the current Forest Plan was adopted in 1987 and defines old growth by certain measurements such as a certain number per acre that are 20” dbh or more. He said the Plan talks about a canopy closure of 75% of site potential. He called that “a very undefined measure” and “not a set standard.” He also noted that the Forest Plan doesn’t even consider the age of a tree in determining its status as old growth.
According to Brown, a more “reasonable, repeatable way of measuring old growth” was developed in a document commonly referred to as “Green, et al…” after the lead author of the work, which “lays out very consistent repeatable measures of what constitutes old growth across the region by using habitat type. It’s exhaustive, comprehensive, and tied closely to data that we can check. So it’s simple to determine if it’s old growth or not.”
He also said that in the Forest’s 1994 monitoring report, it states that the Forest Plan standards adopted in 1987 are not the best available science, making it difficult if not impossible to measure and that the Forest should be using ‘Green, et al’.
“I believe the language used actually said that we should amend our Forest Plan to include Green, et al.,” said Brown.
He said the Forest went on to use ‘Green, et al’ for the next 26 years but did not bother to amend the Forest Plan to say that Green, et al, would be used to define old growth.
“Then these groups sued us, complaining that we were not following the Forest Plan,” said Brown. “We took a look at it and said, hey, they are right and I guess this is the long way of saying that we were doing our best, we were using the best available science, but our Forest Plan is not based on the best available science, so it’s really a technicality.”
The solution, according to Brown, will be to adopt a project specific amendment to the Forest Plan for the Gold Butterfly Project. That means doing a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). He said it could take up to nine months to a year to go through that process.
“We recognize that this is important work that needs to be done and we are going to do our best to get it turned around so that we can continue the good work,” he said.
Jim Miller, President of Friends of the Bitterroot, said, “Gold Butterfly would have been the largest, most destructive timber sale in decades on the Bitterroot National Forest. We are very glad they withdrew the decision because it was an illegal project.” He said the project included old-growth logging, clearcutting, road building, destruction of wildlife habitat, and threatened spawning streams for endangered bull trout.
“Although it was broadly opposed by the public, the Forest Service ignored citizen input and a viable alternative that would have achieved the purpose of the project without seriously disrupting the ecological integrity of the area,” said Miller.
Miller said that in the past Friends of the Bitterroot has been criticized by the timber industry and the U.S. Forest Service for stepping in at the last hour on their projects and making a legal issue of things.
“We have been expressing our concerns about these issues in public comment and at public meetings for two years now,” said Miller. “In our comments at the meeting that the Forest Service held with objectors, we all but pleaded with them to change the project and protect these resources, but they refused to do so. So now here we are, two years into this project, and the Forest Service is finally admitting that they are violating their own Forest Plan and our environmental laws. They could have recognized this a long time ago and prevented a lawsuit and potentially had this project underway.”
“We believe and I think most of the country believes that our environmental laws are here for a reason, to protect the national forests, the public’s forests,” said Miller. “When they do that, we expect the Forest Service to respect the laws and their own regulations, but when they don’t, our only recourse is to go to court.”
Miller said that there isn’t much old growth left on the national forests or in the country due to massive cutting at the turn of the century.
“So it’s really important to protect those big old trees because they are critical to the forest ecosystem, to the wildlife and are such a rare part of our forest. I think everybody loves those big old trees and the Forest Service has plans to overcut the old growth as per its own forest plans and to even clear-cut some areas. I don’t think most people want that,” said Miller.
He said there was an alternative in the EIS which was broadly supported by about 75% of the public comment and it included commercial logging.
“They had an opportunity to choose an alternative that had community support, and to build bridges with the conservation community,” said Miller. “When they decided not to do that, it was a great lost opportunity.”
Mike Garrity, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, stated in a press release that it made absolutely no sense to go forward with this “enormously expensive and environmentally destructive project given the nation’s current economic condition.”
“We are thrilled that the Forest Service came to its senses,” said Garrity. “As the Forest Service’s own data indicates — federal taxpayers would have lost a stunning $4.2 million on the project. Significantly, this information was buried in internal agency documents, and the agency did not honestly disclose this number to the public in the Environmental Impact Statement.”
Garrity noted that 750 acres, more than one square mile of old-growth forest, has been saved by withdrawing this decision.
“The Forest Service claimed it was going to conduct this logging under the provisions of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, but there’s a real legal problem with that since that law actually prohibits logging old-growth forests — and this project was going to chop down 750 acres of increasingly rare old growth forests,” he said.
Regarding their claims about the elk habitat violation, he said the Forest Service admitted that the project did not comply with the standard for elk habitat and it proposed a new standard for the project. But that new standard, he said, requires at least 30% of the project area be maintained in “elk security blocks.” He said this project area is already woefully inadequate, with only 8.0% in elk security blocks and the extensive logging and roading from the project will further reduce that security. However, he said, the Forest Service chose not to disclose its non-compliance with the new standard to the public in the Environmental Impact Statement.
“It’s no wonder the vast majority of the thousands of people who commented opposed the Gold Butterfly project, since it’s estimated to run 6,000 to 7,000 loaded logging trucks down Willow Creek Road,” Garrity concluded. “That’s a dirt road with people’s homes right next to it, which would significantly impact and endanger their lives and families. The Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Friends of the Bitterroot were honored to stand with the thousands of citizens opposing this project and will continue to exercise our first amendment rights to challenge illegal Forest Service decisions in court in the future.”